I suggested in my previous post that unmet business benefits, make ERP initiatives fail even when they are on-time, on-budget, and on-scope. If we spoke previously about failure, then let’s start here talking about success.
According to my dictionary, success is a noun with multiple meanings, yet the primary one is “the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors; the accomplishment of one’s goals.” It’s not about the scope, timeline or budget, it’s all about the business GOALS.
So when we talk about redefining success – hitting your goals – in people terms, what does that mean? Defining where you intend to end is important, but so is defining how you expect to get there. Defining success in people terms means we also have to define how something will be made successful and who will do it.
Here are some of the “goals” customers have given us for implementing ERP:
- To improve business performance and automation
- To replace an old or legacy system
- To better support the business across multiple locations
- To better serve customers
- To position the company for growth
Admirable reasons; terrible goals.
Why?
They can’t be measured and they give no clue how they could be achieved. They look good, but are sort of neutral and unobjectionable, actually saying very little.
When a client tells us they want to move to new ERP to improve business performance, it is the beginning of what becomes a very long – and critically important – discussion that looks like this:
What areas need improvement? Why? What would the improvements, by area, look like? What changes (people/org, role, process, system, or data) are required to achieve it? How will ERP enable this? How can we state this in measurable terms? What about timeframes for realization?
Starting with “improve business performance,” we can end with goals like this:
Through updated standards for purchase orders enforced in the Purchasing module at the field level, and through improved training of Buyers and weekly monitoring of conformance with these standards, we will eliminate 90% of incomplete purchase orders from flowing through the supply chain within three months of go-live.
By eliminating non-conforming purchase orders, we will reduce the effort of Accounts Payable clerks matching POs to vendor invoices which will be sufficient to eliminate three temporary clerk positions.
Granted, this would be but one of many, many goals that would be documented to achieve “improved business performance.” But that is what it means to truly document goals within a business case and to define success in people terms.
Arriving on-time, on-budget, and on-scope are valid goals on any ERP implementation project. Anyone working in this business knows those goals are themselves hard enough to achieve. While they may be necessary when viewing ERP through the lens of an enterprise software implementation project, they are woefully inadequate when viewing ERP as a business transformation initiative.
If you want to really get your hands around how to make ERP successful, you have to spend the time, energy, and effort defining your goals more completely and concretely. They should enable and guide your implementation. If they don’t, head back to the whiteboard and lock the right people in the room until you get what you need. And if you don’t know what you need, get help defining it.
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